1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a facsimile apparatus or a printer connected with a computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
As disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H09-328249, there has been conventionally known an image forming apparatus constructed such that a sheet having a toner image already fixed thereto and horizontally conveyed from an image forming unit via a fixing unit is discharged on an interior discharge tray via an inverting conveyance path extending upward while being turned an upside-down (so-called faced-down state).
The inverting conveyance path is defined between a wall surface of an apparatus main body and an inner wall surface of a swing door mounted at the apparatus main body in such a manner as to be openable and closable with a suitable position downstream of the fixing unit as a supporting point of rotation by being turned in forward and reverse directions.
Accordingly, in the case of a paper jam in the inverting conveyance path, the sheet jammed in the inverting conveyance path is exposed to the outside by opening the swing door. Thus, the paper jam is solved by removing the sheet exposed to the outside from the inverting conveyance path.
In addition to the fact that it is sufficient for the inverting conveyance path to have such a width as to enable the passage of the sheet, the swing door is preferably arranged as close as possible to the wall surface of the apparatus main body defining the inverting conveyance path in order to make the apparatus smaller in size. However, if the swing door is too close to the wall surface, a bottom end portion thereof comes to interfere with the fixing unit when the swing door is opened. Therefore, the supporting point of rotation is normally located at a position appropriately distanced from the fixing unit.
Accordingly, the supporting point of rotation of the swing door is set at such a position that the swing door does not interfere with the fixing unit upon being opened and that is maximally close to the fixing unit. Even with such an arrangement, a part of the swing door below the supporting point of rotation projects toward the inverting conveyance path with the swing door opened. This projecting bottom end portion of the swing door presses the sheet having caused the paper jam against the fixing unit and the sheet is squeezed between the swing door and the wall surface of the fixing unit. Therefore, there has been a problem that the jammed sheet cannot be easily removed.